A recent article in the Tahoe Tribune titled “Fire-fuel Funds Keep Flowing into South Shore”  (http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20090121/NEWS/901219993/1003/NONE&parentprofile=1056&title=Tahoe%20awarded%20%246%20million%20Forest%20Service%20fire%20grant ) holds the promise of much needed funds being made available for forest fuels reduction work in the Tahoe Basin. As reported in this article these funds will be coming from two different sources. The first source is the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA). These funds will be only for projects on United States Forest Service Lands. These funds go to the United States Forest Service, not local fire districts.  

The allocation of these funds to the various fire districts is based in part upon the individual  fire district’s capacity to implement projects in a cost-effective and timely manner. The financial support the community has pledged to the Tahoe Douglas Fire District will allow the Fire District to have the infrastructure and programs in place to be competitive in receiving these funds and implement the projects  in an efficient manner.

With this newly pledged funding, some community members may wonder if the Fire District still needs to collect the Fuels Management Property Tax that was approved by the voters in November of 2008. 

The short answer is "yes". While these new funds will allow us to treat additional acres sooner than originally planned, the current condition of forest fuels is a problem that has been building for over 100 years, and cannot be mitigated with a season or two of fuels reduction. This additional funding will assist in building a robust fuels treatment program that will be capable of reducing the risk in our community long after the current grant projects have been implemented.